Silver rush: Dutee in 100m, Hima in 400m, Anas in 400m
JAKARTA/ PALEMBANG: Hima Das shone the brightest with a brand new record to her name, Muhammed Anas did enough to hold on to his status of a regional force and Dutee Chand won another battle of relevance on a jinx-breaking day for India at the Asian Games. It was a day when India counted the silvers, a total of five, even though there was no gold in the tally. The country took the ninth spot in the overall standings with 36 to its credit, including seven golds, 10 silvers and 19 bronze medals.
The 18-year-old Hima shattered the 400m national record for a second time in two days for her silver while Anas grabbed the second place in the same event for men today. Dutee, for long haunted by the gender dispute case that she eventually won, dug her heels for a silver in the women’s 100m in a remarkable photo-finish.
The silver medals from Hima and Anas were on expected lines as the gold winners in their respective events were outright pre-race favourites. Hima clocked 50.59 seconds to win the silver, while Asian champion Anas clocked 45.69 seconds in his 400m final. Dutee turned in a timing of 11.32sec.
There was major heartbreak too as long distance runner Govindan Lakshmanan crossed the finishing line at third in the men’s 10,000m
race but was later disqualified for violating IAAF 163.3b rule on lane infringement. He was initially shown to have clocked 29:44.91. If Hima, Anas and Dutee were the undisputed stars on the track, the equestrian team turned out to be the surprise package of the day, bagging a couple of silver medals in the eventing competition.
Fouaad Mirza became the first Indian to win an Asian Games individual equestrian medal since 1982 besides guiding the country to a second-place finish in the team competition. Mirza won the silver medal in individual jumping with a score of 26.40, while Japan’s Oiwa Yoshiaki clinched the gold with a score of 22.70.
The Indian team, comprising Rakesh Kumar, Ashish Malik and Jitender Singh apart from Mirza, also claimed the silver with a score of 121.30, the feats coming days after their last-minute arrival owing to infighting in the Equestrian Federation of India.